The rest of that long, hot afternoon had passed in a blaze of longing. Her eyes never left him. Her pulses raced faster and faster. With each flourish of his cape, each thrust of his hips, each sensual movement of his hands, she felt as if he were already making love to her. Stroking her, fondling her, setting her on fire.
By the time Raul’s somber bodyguard came to fetch her, she was already his prisoner of passion, his woman. She lost more than her heart and her soul that afternoon; she lost her own identity. She became only an extension of the man in the suit of lights.
“Raul wants you,” his henchman informed her brusquely.
And I want him, she answered with a silent nod.
She was escorted to a sort of dressing room, a cluttered space used by all the matadors. The chamber reeked of pomade, stale wine, cut flowers, and urine. Clothes were scattered about, along with empty wineskins, bloody capes, baskets of spoiling fruit. She entered hesitantly, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the shadows after the bright sun outside. Then she saw him—bare to the waist, his tight pants gleaming with their dusty spangles. He was no longer smiling. His black eyes glowed as he gazed at her.
He motioned her closer. She took a few steps toward him, her heart in her throat. Then she was in his arms. He never asked her name, never spoke a word. As he kissed her—a hard, hot, probing kiss that took her breath away and made her tremble—he pulled the peasant blouse from her shoulders. By the end of that first kiss, they were both naked to the waist. He gripped her breasts with both hands, squeezing until her nipples strained toward his waiting lips, squeezing until she moaned, half in pain, half in pleasure. When he smoothed his tongue over her flesh, she forgot the pain altogether. Her blood turned to liquid fire.
He lowered her to a cot in one corner of the room. His cape-work proved good practice for his next maneuver. With expert dexterity, he stripped away her full cotton-gauze skirt, leaving her naked before his hungry eyes. For a time, he simply knelt beside her, examining her body with his hungry gaze. She shivered, aching for his next move, wondering what he would do to her and how long he would make her wait.
Just then, two other men barged into the room, laughing and talking in rapid-fire Spanish. They fell silent when they saw her. Mary Scarlett tried to curl herself into a ball to hide her nakedness, but Raul lashed out sharply in his native tongue. She caught only a word or two, but his tone was universal. He motioned his friends over. All three of them stared at her. She wanted to die of embarrassment, but at the same time she felt strangely aroused by the admiration in their dark eyes and their murmurs of approval.
The men exchanged remarks, again in Spanish. It seemed to her that Raul’s friends were offering suggestions. Raul nodded, chuckled, then slid one hand up the length of her leg until it rested between her thighs, the tips of his fingers touching the source of her painful need. She bit her lip, but a soft moan escaped despite her best efforts. The two spectators laughed. They drew up chairs, uncorked a bottle of wine, and passed it back and forth. Raul took a swig and offered it to Mary Scarlett. She rose on one elbow to accept the drink. When she shifted on the cot, Raul’s fingers sank into her. She gasped. The two other men laughed, then opened another bottle.
The afternoon wore on into evening. More touching, kissing, taunting. More painful longing for Mary Scarlett— debutante, socialite, prisoner of passion.
The room grew dark. The men lit candles and drank more wine and said things in Spanish to Raul that Mary Scarlett was glad she didn’t understand. Raul, too, was naked by now. Naked and ready.
By the time he finally mounted her, Mary Scarlett was very drunk and aroused nearly to the point of madness. His first deep thrust brought a scream from her bruised, wine-stained lips—an exclamation of pure relief. Raul’s friends applauded and called encouragement as the magnificent matador rode her expertly. Their voices sounded dim and faraway to Mary Scarlett. Her full awareness centered upon her new lover. His power, his size, his hot male smell. The wonderful slide of his sweaty flesh over hers.
When her climax came, she felt totally transported. She was off in another world—a cool, perfumed, glorious place. Angels sang. Stars danced. The moon cried for joy.
Satisfied, Raul withdrew. He leaned over Mary Scarlett, staring down into her eyes. He kissed her hard and pinched her nipples, then smoothed one firm palm down over her belly.
“De nada,” he said, the first words he had spoken directly to her. She understood. Not “Thank you,” but “You are welcome.” To his way of thinking, he had given; she had received.
She lay there watching him as he rose from the cot and wrapped a towel around his hips to hide his spent erection. His attention turned from her now, centering on his two friends, both big, handsome fellows. With a polite gesture of his hand and a few words, he obviously offered them their turns with his new lover. Mary Scarlett stiffened. The huskier of the men stood, came over to the cot, and grinned down at her. She closed her eyes and turned her face toward the wall.
Again, they laughed and passed the wine bottle. She was drifting off now. As hard as she tried to stay awake, it was no use. Her body longed for sleep almost as desperately as it still longed for Raul.
Sometime late in the night, he woke her. The other men were gone. He tossed her clothes on the cot and said, “Go now.”
Until that moment, she hadn’t known that he spoke a word of English.
“Go where?” she asked groggily.
“Home to your mama.”
“My mama’s dead,” she lied.
He shrugged. “Go back to your husband then. He will be wondering where you are.”
She shook her head.
“No husband either?” He chuckled deep in his throat. “That is good. He probably would not take you back now. Even if he would, he could no longer please you, eh? Not after Raul.”
“Please let me stay with you.” Mary Scarlett couldn’t believe it when she heard herself begging.
He hesitated, considering. “You are American?”
She nodded, blinking back tears, holding her breath as she waited for his answer.
“I saw you with those Gypsies. You are not one of them?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Good! I hate Gypsies. American, eh? And all alone?”
Again she’d nodded silently, fighting back tears. She hadn’t realized how alone she felt.
He shrugged. “Stay then, if you wish.”
When she murmured her thanks to Raul-the-Magnificent, he only scowled at her. Then tossing a few bills on the bed, he said, “If you wish to remain with me, have your hair done. You look like a dark Gypsy. Blondes make me hot.”
A week later, Mary Scarlett Lamar from Savannah, Georgia, was a blonde, married to a hard-drinking, trigger-tempered, oversexed Spanish bullfighter. Obsessed with him. Afraid of him, but willing to do anything to be with him.
And that had been the beginning of it. A seven-year rollercoaster marriage during which she had experienced the heights of passion and the depths of degradation. She had been weak when she met him, lost while she was married to him, and freed only when the bull destroyed him. For months after his death, she had wandered Europe, trying to find herself again, trying to remember who the real Mary Scarlett truly was. She had almost decided that the person she had once been had ceased to exist, that the old Mary Scarlett was as cold and dead as Raul.
Until one afternoon on a hilltop in Greece. As she had gazed out over the Aegean Sea, watching the sinking sun turn the water to molten gold, she had suddenly remembered Savannah. Images and sensations had come flooding back— the green darkness of the oaks, the old mansions like faded ladies, the cobbled streets, the smell of marsh and mud and magnolias. The old house on Bull Street, with all its secrets, all its magic. The antique mirror that had been her favorite plaything as a child, her talisman, her good luck charm. The very object that had warned her away was now pulling her back.
Savannah! She had r
ealized in an instant that she would find the real Mary Scarlett there. That’s where she had been all this time, waiting for her pale, confused twin to return.
Still sitting on the bed in Bolton Conrad’s apartment, Mary Scarlett gazed out at the river—wide, lazy, blue with the reflection of the sky. “Well, here I am,” she whispered. “I’m home, Savannah. Now what?”
She caught a glimpse of herself in the vanity mirror across the room and gasped softly. Even after all these years as Raul’s blonde, seeing her own image was like looking at a stranger. No wonder Bolton had been taken aback when he first saw her.
Tugging a long lock of her hair forward, she glared at the pale strands. “A blonde!” she said with disgust. “This belongs to Raul’s Mary Scarlett. Bolt always said I had hair as dark as Bonaventure Cemetery at the witching hour.”
She reached for the phone book on the bedside table and flipped through the Yellow Pages. Quickly, she found the listings for beauty salons. She skimmed her finger past “Dotty’s Curl Up and Dye” to a more sedate-sounding establishment, the same place her mother had taken her every Saturday as a child. When she phoned, a seemingly bored female said, “Frankie can do you at two.”
She experienced a wave of relief when she hung up the phone. She’d never felt right as a blonde. She’d changed her appearance only to humor Raul. It might have made him feel sexy, but it made Mary Scarlett feel just plain odd. A brunette soul in a blonde disguise. Well, she was through with living her life to suit other people. It was high time she started doing whatever it took to make herself happy.
And the item at the very top of her make-Mary Scarlett-happy agenda was “Marry Bolton Conrad, like you should have done eight years ago.”
Bolt felt uneasy as he left Factor’s Row and headed up Bay Street. It was great having Mary Scarlett back, but her return could cause him big problems. A lot had happened in the past eight years. He still didn’t know for sure why she had run away. He’d blamed himself all this time. What was that old saying of his mother’s? For love to grow it needs roots and wings. Mary Scarlett had roots, all right, that went back to the very birth of the city. But in loving her so much, had he tried to clip her wings? He had crowded her, pressured her, taken away her breathing space. If he meant to try to win her again, he would have to go about it differently this time. He would have to gentle her along, let her set her own pace.
“No more crowding,” he muttered to himself.
People passing on the street who knew Bolton Conrad must have wondered at his frown. He was known for his pleasant disposition. But today he passed right by O’Leary the cop and Jani the praline lady without so much as a smile or a nod, lost in troubling thoughts.
Mary Scarlett was different. She had changed during her time away from Savannah. He realized that she’d been through a lot. Seeing her husband killed had to have traumatized her. Still, the self-assurance and the stubbornness that had once attracted him seemed missing. The old Mary Scarlett Lamar had never been a woman to lean on any other person. She knew what she wanted and she went after it, period. Now she seemed lost, distracted, casting about for something or someone to give her strength. Bolton could and would gladly be her rock. Yet that, too, nagged at him. Was that the only reason she had come back to him, because he made her feel safe?
Lost in thought, Bolton passed the entrance to the newspaper office before he realized it. He backtracked and pushed through the glass and chrome doors.
“’Morning, Mr. Conrad!” The perky secretary at the front desk greeted him warmly. “Can I help you?”
“Hello, Brenda. Yes, you’re the very person I came to see.”
She beamed at him, positively glowing.
“I have a short item to go in the paper.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Conrad.” She handed him a form to fill out, then stood next to the counter watching while he printed the item in neat, square letters.
Reading as he wrote, Brenda’s eyes grew wide. She gave a low whistle. “Mary Scarlett Lamar is back in Savannah? Man, that is news!”
Bolton looked at her quizzically. Was Brenda the only person in Savannah who hadn’t read the paper this morning?
“How do you know Mary Scarlett?” Brenda couldn’t have been more than a kid eight years ago.
“I don’t know her, not personally. But my mama told me all about her—how she ran off and married a bullfighter and broke her mother’s heart. Not to mention the heart of the man who expected to marry her…” Brenda’s words trailed off and she lowered her eyes. A hot-pink flush crept into her cheeks. “Sorry, Mr. Conrad. I forgot. You were the guy, weren’t you?”
This time Bolt cut her off. “It’s all right, Brenda. Our engagement was never official and that’s all in the past. Get this in as soon as you can.”
“Yessir,” she answered, all business now.
He absolved her with one of his most dazzling smiles. “You have a nice day, now.”
She smiled back just before he turned to leave.
Outside again in the sunny morning air, Bolt took a deep breath. He was going to have to get used to this sort of thing. Mary Scarlett had been one of Savannah’s main topics of gossip since the day she left. Rumors had grown and multiplied every day for the first couple of years, then flared up with Big Dick’s disappearance and yet again with Miss Lucy’s untimely death. That had been the ugliest time of all. Whispers of suicide had been rampant. Only the high alcohol content in her blood had saved the Lamar name from disgrace. Among Savannahians, drinking was socially acceptable; suicide was not. But still some people wondered. Lucy Lamar had never been a stable person, and to lose her daughter, then her husband, might have been more than she could bear.
Again, Bolton forced such unsavory thoughts from his mind. His next stop was a few blocks away, Garden City Properties. He debated about going to some other real estate office. But Kathleen would find out sooner or later of Mary Scarlett’s return, if she didn’t already know. He decided he might as well get this over with.
The office was quiet this morning. Most of the agents were out showing property. But he was in luck. The moment he entered he spotted Kathleen at her desk, working at her computer.
“Hi, Katie-girl.” He greeted her warmly with his pet name for her.
She turned and smiled, her green eyes warming at the sight of him. “Bolt! What a nice surprise! It’s too early for lunch. What brings you to this part of town?”
“Business,” he answered. Then leaning close over her desk and smiling into her eyes, he added, “And the pleasure of seeing you.”
“Well now, that pleasure is mutual. How can I help you?”
“I need to browse through your apartment listings.”
Kathleen’s smile faded. “Bolt, you aren’t moving? Why, we just got your new place all fixed up. I love it! I thought you did, too.”
He shook his head to put her mind at ease. “No way! I plan to stay put for a good, long time. I wouldn’t swap my apartment for the Owens-Thomas mansion, antiques, ghosts, and all. No, I’m looking for a place for a friend. Something nice. I don’t think money’s a problem.”
Kathleen raised a dark-gold eyebrow and grinned at him. “Ah, a rich bachelor-friend. You’ve been holding out on me, Bolt. He’s probably good-looking, too. A real catch.”
Bolt shook his head and muttered, “A woman.” Suddenly, he had cold feet. He wasn’t sure he could admit to Kathleen that his “friend” was Mary Scarlett.
“A woman?” Now the laughter left her voice, replaced by a tone that bordered on jealousy.
He nodded silently, not meeting her curious gaze. “That’s right, Katie.”
“Anyone I know?”
Bolt looked up slowly, hoping his face was an emotionless mask. “Yes, you know her. Haven’t you seen the paper this morning? Mary Scarlett’s back.”
Kathleen made a soft sound of surprise. “Where is she staying now, the Hilton or the Radisson?”
“No.” Bolt’s
answer was only a whisper. “With me.”
The color drained from Kathleen’s pretty, heart-shaped face. “I see.”
“No, you don’t, Katie. She got into town in the middle of the night. She was in a less than desirable motel. She called me.”
“Of course,” Kathleen said stiffly. “Who else would she call?”
“It’s not like that. I brought her to my place, just until we can find an apartment”
“We,” Kathleen repeated in an empty tone.
“We—as in, I get the listings, then she goes and picks out a place and moves in, alone!”
“I understand, Bolton.”
“No, you don’t!” Dammit, he was almost shouting and he didn’t want to. He was acting as guilty as sin. “You don’t understand at all, Kathleen. There’s nothing between us. It was over a long time ago.”
“I take it her husband’s not with her? Then she won’t be staying long, right?”
Bolt fought for control. “He died. She’s staying.”
Instead of an answer, Bolton heard Kathleen’s computer keys clicking, then the printer whirring into action. A moment later, she ripped off the printout and handed it to him. “These are the best apartments in town. I’m sure she’ll find something to suit her.”
“Thank you, Katie.” He meant that sincerely. He didn’t want to hurt Kathleen. She was one of the dearest people he had ever known.
“You’re welcome, Bolt.” She smiled and let her hand brush his. She was trying to make up for sounding like a jealous fishwife. “By the way, I had a call from Allen a few minutes ago.”
Bolt stiffened.
“So? What about the party Saturday night? Allen seemed surprised that you hadn’t invited me already. He said you’d probably phone me this morning. Sounds fancy, and fun. I think I’ll wear that rose chiffon gown you like so much. What time?”
“Time?” Bolt’s head was spinning. Damn Allen Overman! The bastard had set him up. “Kathleen, I’m really sorry about this, but do you mind making it a threesome? You see, Mary Scarlett…”
Savannah Scarlett Page 5